35 Weeks & The Next Step

I had another doctor appointment today and everything still looks good. Not much to report really. Kaylin is still growing, and I'm measuring about a week and a half big. Her heart rate sounded great (once she stopped moving long enough for the doctor to hear it) and was in the 140's. My blood pressure was back to normal, which means it was probably just the stress of Ben being in the hospital that caused it to go up last time. And my weight was actually down a pound from my last appointment. So all in all, everything is looking good. I really don't have much to complain about, other than when she decides she needs to stretch out and has her head down low and her feet up in my stomach and lungs. Haha! She is head down, but hasn't settled into place yet. She moves around way too much for that. She still doesn't like being spied on. You could see her kicking up a storm at the doctors office when the doctor tried to get her heartbeat. It's hard to believe we've only got 5 weeks left (give or take of course). We are ready for her though. Not only am I ready to be done being pregnant, but we've got the nursery set up and pretty much all the essentials. Now it's just waiting for her to be ready. :)
Ben is doing about the same. He's mostly recovered from the surgery, but still hurts quite a bit from the nerve pain. The nerve blocks didn't work as well as hoped. The second one they tried, they actually put into the spine and was supposed to last a lot longer. It didn't. It was supposed to take the pain completely away and last for a couple days. It took it down maybe a point and only lasted about 12 hours. His back hurt longer from the injection site than the block actually lasted. So the next step is to try a nerve stimulator implant thing. I'm not sure of all the details right now. Our next appointment is next week and we'll talk about it more then. But basically they will go in and place electrode type things in his spine which is connected to a battery box type thing that sends impulses and signals to the nerve to supposedly tell it that it doesn't hurt. Does that make sense? We'll start with a trial of 5 days or so, and if it helps they'll put in a permanent one. So we may be looking at another surgery. Well see though. But that looks like the direction we are headed. Then if the nerve stimulator doesn't work, it will just be pain management through medications. We've pretty much exhausted all our other options. On a positive note, we are one step closer to the medical board. We finally got what we needed from the surgeon saying there wasn't anything else they can do and we should just get the permanent profile. Now our doctor can write it, but we are going to wait and see what pain management decides to do (ie whether or not they will do surgery to implant the nerve stimulator). But as soon as we try everything with pain management, we can get the profile and get the med board started.
So that's where we are right now. Not a whole lot going on at the moment. If anything changes though, we'll let you know. :)

Relief In Sight?

Ben had a couple doctor appointments this morning. One of them was with a different pain management doctor. He is an interventional pain management doctor if I remember right. And guess what... He actually has something that works for Ben! Instead of just telling us it's "chronic pelvic pain" he actually has a reason for the pain. Due to all the previous surgeries, there is scar tissue built up around one of the nerves. The Ilioinguinal nerve to be exact. So while there today he gave Ben a nerve block, which was a shot of steroids and something else that I can't remember. It actually took his pain from an 8 down to a 4! Granted it didn't last very long, but it still took it down for a little bit. We have another appointment on Monday to try a different nerve block and we'll see if one works better than the other. And if neither of them works super well, we can try them together or try another type of block. This new doctor also changed his meds up a little bit. He upped the dose of one (so he'll be taking the max dose instead of minimum) and changed the narcotic he's on. So we'll see how this works out. He is much more willing to help us out though. We realize the nerve blocks won't solve the problem, but they will at least bring the pain down to a manageable and functional level.
We also talked to our case manager yesterday, and he was going to work on getting the paperwork we need to get the med board started. Since the surgery obviously didn't fix the problem and he's still hurting, he was going to email the surgeon and have him put a note in the medical system saying there is nothing else he can do, and then our primary care doctor can write up the profile. Hopefully that all works out so we can this show on the road. So that is where we are right now. We've got some options to try for pain relief and we'll hopefully be starting the med board process soon. The sooner this all happens, the better. :)

32 Weeks

It's hard to believe we're almost there! We're down to single digit weeks! Things are still going great. As of my appointment last week (at 31 weeks) everything still looks good. Kaylin's heart rate was in the 130's, I measured 32 cm (so a week bigger than where I was), and I've put on a total of about 15 lbs total since the beginning of the pregnancy. The only concern was my blood pressure was a bit high. I haven't had problems with it during pregnancy, it's actually been really good, but I have had problems with it being high in the past. The doctor wanted to get it checked out to make sure it was just the stress of Ben being in the hospital rather than preeclampsia that had caused it to go up. So she ordered some lab work and had me go up to labor and delivery and have them check it since I was going to be up there anyway with Ben. I guess she wanted me to go get it done the same day, but didn't make that very clear so I did it a couple days later. Oops! Everything was fine though. I went over and they hooked me up to all the monitors- the blood pressure cuff, the one that checks baby's heart rate, and the one that checks for contractions. The first blood pressure reading they did was a little high, so they had me lay on my side and the rest of them were great after that. Kaylin wasn't as cooperative though. The nurse was able to find her heartbeat right away, but as soon as he took his gloves off she moved off the monitor. She did that a few times. She kept rolling around and kicking the monitor. Stubborn little girl! But in the end everything looked great. Her heart rate was good, my blood pressure was good, all my lab work looked good, and I wasn't having any contractions. So it was probably just the stress of everything that had been going on with Ben that had my blood pressure up. Guess I just need to learn to relax... Easier said than done, I know. Haha!

We can't wait to meet our little girl though! She already has quite the personality. She doesn't like to share mommy's tummy. Whether it's monitors at the doctor's office, my cell phone, the puppies laying on it, or daddy touching or laying on it, she doesn't like sharing and will kick or hit whatever is there. She does like playing with daddy though. He knows exactly how to get her to move when she's sitting too low or has a foot or elbow in an uncomfortable place, and how to wake her up once she does settle down. I love how excited he is for his little girl! He's going to be such a great daddy! :)

Diagnosis: Chronic Pelvic Pain

I should have updated this several times, but I haven't. I've posted daily updates on facebook so if you've been following that, you pretty much know where we are. But if not, here's the rundown of the past week and a half...
Ben has been in the hospital since the surgery and was finally released tonight. They couldn't get his pain under control, and honestly it still isn't. It typically sits at an 8-9/10. We had a few occasions where we were able to get it down to a 4 and 5, but it didn't usually last very long. The doctors were not very helpful. The residents from General Surgery that did the daily rounds, really did nothing. They put in consults with Pain Management, Gastroenterology, Urology, and Psychiatry. To no surprise, no one found anything wrong. They did a CT Scan last Thursday, thinking maybe they missed something, but everything appeared "normal." That's what they said anyway, but when reading the discharge paperwork tonight and seeing their report I would think otherwise. But what do I know?! So no one knows what to do and why he's hurting. They start some new medications, but they typically take at least a week to kick in before seeing any results. They started those Friday. Still haven't seen much of a difference. We had decided after talking to Pain Management on Sunday that we were going to try an epidural on Monday, just to try and numb everything up and give the other pills a chance to kick in. Come Monday morning, that plan was changed. I think mostly because the doctor we were working with all week changed because he was off. So this new doctor said our choices were to try a new drug called Ketamine or stop all the narcotic meds and just send him home. Since he really wasn't able to function even with the narcotics, we opted to do the Ketamine. He really didn't want to do it, but felt that was his only choice. The doctors thought it would work, the nurses thought it would work, I thought it might work. It didn't work. What it's supposed to do is reset the pain receptors in the brain causing you to think the pain really isn't as bad as it feels. For those it works for there have been great results. What they didn't tell us before hand was that it only works about 50% of the time. It has some nasty side effects too. They had to give him another medication to counteract the side effects, and as a result doesn't really have any memory of the 36 hours he was on it. And while we had our moments where he gave me and the nurses some good laughs, there were also some very depressing kinda scary moments. Last night he kept asking when he would be done, when we could go home, why was he still hurting, etc. It was so hard to see him like that. It kills me inside to see him in pain all the time anyway. I really wish I could just make it go away. And I wish I knew why he was hurting and how I could make it better. The doctors have us a whole regiment of medications for him to take (6 different pills, most of them twice a day). And now we just play with the medications until we find something that works. I hate having to tell him that, but that's all we can do now. There really aren't any more tests we can do. The doctors are pretty much stumped and don't know what to do. It really kind of feels like the past week and a half was just a waste. The surgery was supposed to help, not make the pain worse. I don't know what to do now though. I'm doing my best to keep a positive outlook, and I keep telling him (and myself) that we will get this figured out. But it's hard when he's ready to give up and is feeling hopeless. It's not like we're asking them to make the pain go completely away. We just want it down to a manageable level where he can function on a daily basis and we can just get on with our lives. Is that really too much to ask?! The pain management doctor explained this morning that chronic pelvic pain is not uncommon, they treat it all the time. If they treat it all the time, why aren't they finding anything to help us? He also said most people with it are able to learn to live with it and are able to go on with life. They aren't pain free, but they are functional. That's all we're asking, to be functional. So I guess we just wait and see what happens from here on out. Since we didn't get the problem taken care of, we're going to push to get the paperwork we need to start the med board and be done with the military. We're not impressed with the military medical system and are ready to be done period. We don't feel like we have the support of his command. Only one person came to visit him while he was in the hospital. His staff Sargent, and she was only there for a minute, quite literally. The missionaries did come visit with us for a bit before we were discharged tonight. We have a senior couple in our ward that work on behalf of the military, which is pretty cool. One of the chaplains up at the hospital gave them a call and they came up to visit. They are a really nice couple. Very grandparent like. And they are from Idaho! They called one of the other senior couples in the area and they came up and the two elders gave Ben a blessing before we left. If nothing else, I was feeling a tad bit better after that. I have a feeling it's going to be a long hard road ahead of us. I was hoping to have him feeling better before Kaylin gets here, but that hope is starting to fade. I'm hoping we find something to help him soon. I can't stand to see him hurt any more, and I know he is way ready to feel better. We've done everything the doctors have asked, and then some, and still don't have an answer or solution. So I really pray we get this figured out soon. In the meantime though, I think we're going to need lots of prayers, love and support.

Surgery #3

What a long stressful day. Ben had his third abdominal surgery this morning. Well, technically 4th, but I don't count the one he had as a kid. Just counting since he's started having all these problems with pain. But here's the scoop for the day... We never had a super good feeling about this surgery. Yes we were/are tired of the pain and something needed to be done, but something about this just didn't feel right. After his pre-op appointment last Friday we were about ready to say never mind and cancel it. But we didn't. We reported to the hospital this morning, and it wasn't until we actually talked to the doctor back in the surgical waiting area that I began feeling a bit better about it. Naturally I still shed a few tears. Anyone who knows me knows how easily I get stressed out. You would think I would be a pro at this surgery thing, but I still don't like it. Anyway, they took him back to the OR about 1030, I headed to the waiting room, and by 1130 the doctor was out to talk to me. My first thought was "Crap! Something's wrong, that didn't take very long." But it was just the opposite. Things went great. They went in and found several adhesions on the left side. Everything else looked good though. So they took down the adhesions and used a product called Seprafilm which is an adhesion blocker. It's supposed to help prevent adhesions from recurring, so we'll see if it helps. I really hope it does. So anyway, he's back in recovery and I'm still sitting there waiting to hear how he's doing. 2 hours later the nurse comes out and lets me know they can't get his pain under control so they are going to admit him. So now my first thought is " Does that mean the surgery didn't work? Are we doomed to chronic pain forever now?" Well I still don't know the answers to those questions. But it could be that he has just built up such a tolerance to pain medications that they don't work so well for him now. Seeing how that's really all they've done for him, is bounced him back and forth between different pain medications, it wouldn't surprise me if he has built up a bit of a tolerance. So after maxing him out on all they pain drugs they could in recovery, they admitted him, which was another mess. The original plan was to admit him, but after the surgery went so well those orders were deleted. So they had to go through the whole process of finding him a room and getting all that figured out. Such a mess. They finally get him a bed and I finally get to see him about 1430. We get him moved over and settled in the room, which is tiny. Who knew they still put 4 patients in the same room?! His "room" is literally like 6' x 6'. And in there you have the bed, side table, IV pole, etc. There really is no room for visitors. I felt like I was constantly in the way when they came in to take his vitals and everything. Once they got him set up, they finally started a pain medication pump, called a CPA or something like that. I can't remember what it stands for right this second, but it's a pump that allows him to give himself pain medication every 10 minutes. It took a while for it to kick in, but he was starting to feel a bit better tonight when I left. It is miserable in that room though. Other than being small, it's really warm, the nurse call button on the bed wasn't working, and the chair they had for me was super uncomfortable. I didn't want to leave, but I had to. One, because I was hurting so bad from sitting there it was killing me. Two, because it's a 4 patient room I'm not allowed to stay the night anyway. And three, we left the dogs outside all day and I needed to check on them. To add to all the stress of the day, they had decided to misbehave while we were gone. They knocked one of the boards out of the fence, tore down some of the chicken wire what we have around the bottom to discourage them from digging, and two different holes where they decided to dig. It was mostly Smokey doing the digging I think, which is a bit surprising. Misty is usually the digger. But he is all red now. Gotta love the red Hawaiian dirt! I really should give them a bath, but I am so exhausted and sore tonight that I just don't have the energy to do it. So they are going to bed dirty, and will probably get a bath tomorrow. So that was my day, more or less. I'm doing my best to stay strong and positive and not stress. It's not very easy sometimes though. But I'm hanging in there. I have my next OB appointment Thursday, so I'll do an update and me and Kaylin after that. Until then though, we are doing good overall. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers on our family's behalf. They are felt and appreciated. :)

Change of Plans

Remember in my last post how I said in the military things can change in a second? Guess I should have knocked on wood or something...
We've had a couple frustrating/stressful days. We spent 12 hours in the ER yesterday. Ben woke up hurting really bad about 2am. We tried all our usual things- put the tens unit on, put the heating pad on, took some pain meds- but nothing was helping. So at 3am we left to head up to Tripler. We got there about 330, and sat there for the next 12 hours. They did the normal tests- blood, urine, etc. Of course everything looked normal. A bit dehydrated, but who wouldn't be after not being able to eat or drink anything for that long. They also did another CT Scan with contrast (he had the exact same thing done 3 weeks ago). And to no surprise, there was no "significant changes." It did show he has a kidney stone on the right side, but that wasn't noticeable compared to the pain he was having on the left. After that, they called General Surgery for a consult. We already had an appointment with them scheduled for today, but the ER wanted their opinion anyway. After consulting with 4 different surgeons, they decided there wasn't anything worth operating on. So they sent us home with some Hydrocodone and said to follow up at our appointment today where they would give us the profile we need to start the med board. We finally got home about 530pm (we hit rush hour traffic and had to stop and get food and gas on the way). The puppies were super good all day though. We had left them in the house thinking we would only be gone 3 or 4 hours. I was very happy to come home to no mess. It's so nice knowing they are that well house trained.
Then this morning we headed up to the hospital fully expecting to just get the profile. After going back almost an hour after our appointment time, the doctor made it quick. We told him about our time in the ER yesterday (because of all the surgeons they consulted he wasn't one of them), and he pretty much decided then and there that he is going to operate again. Really didn't even give us a chance to say yes or no or even ask questions. He then left the room to see when he could do it, came back with a date and sent us over to the appointment office to schedule our pre op appointment. So Ben's have surgery again on July 11th. Totally not what I was expecting this morning. Especially since it was the same surgeon we saw two weeks ago who said he didn't think surgery would work and didn't want to do it, and after 4 surgeons said yesterday that they wouldn't do it. Then all of a sudden someone wants to do it. It's a bit frustrating.
I'll admit I wasn't happy this morning after finding out they are doing another surgery. This will be number 6 in the past 3 years, number 2 in the past 6 months. The difference with this one is that they are going to use an adhesion barrier after removing the adhesions. Hopefully that will prevent the adhesions from coming back and we won't have to deal with this problem anymore. It would be nice to see my husband not hurting any more. But even with the barrier, we can't be 100% sure that the adhesions won't come back. At least if it doesn't work we can say that we've tried everything. So while I'm not totally thrilled that he's having another surgery, I think it's what needs to be done. After talking to my mom this afternoon I'm feeling better about it. The reasons I was telling her for not wanting to do it were sounding kind of stupid once I thought about it. And those that know me know that it doesn't take much to stress me out and make me worry. So naturally I worry that something will happen with the baby (like I'll be put on bed rest or she'll come early) and that Ben won't be fully healed yet. Or worry that this surgery won't work and that the adhesions will just come back worse than before. Or what if it does work, will we still be able to get out or will they keep him on active duty (we still have a little over two years left on his enlistment)? So really it just raises a lot of questions and "what if's" that I don't know if there are any answers for. And I may or may not have just been having a pregnancy moment this morning...
So that's where we are now. Having surgery puts off the med board longer, and we'll have to wait and see if it even happens at all now. We're back to the wait and see point now. Have to wait and see if the surgery is going to work. That will determine what happens after that. So I think it's going to be a few months before we know anything else. Hopefully he'll have some relief for at least that long. But we'll keep you updated as we find out what's going to happen from here on out.

One Month Later...

It's crazy to think that we've been in Hawaii for over a month now. It's been a super busy month, but things are starting to settle down now. The first couple weeks we had several appointments daily. For the most part we are down to 5 or so a week now. Granted the whole reason we are here for appointments and to get Ben feeling better, so the number of appointments is always changing. It's enough to keep us busy though. I'll talk about all that in a minute though.

Here's some highlights for the month of May:

We spent a total of 9 days in the hotel before we were able to move into our house. They had empty houses when we got here (which kind of surprised me), so we were able to get in pretty quick. Most of our stuff from Japan was already here by then too.

It's quite a bit smaller than our house in Japan. This one is a 2 bed/1 bath. Which is alright, other than the fact that we have enough stuff to fill a 3 bedroom. We had the extra room in Japan that we used as a guest room/office, so we have all that extra stuff to find room for. It's been a bit of a challenge, but I think we've got it mostly figured out.





The dogs had to spend the first 3 weeks in quarantine, per Hawaii law. We only got to visit them a couple times while they were there, which was depressing, but they were sure happy to come home.

They love the new car too. They have to really jump to get in it, but as you can tell by their smiles they don't mind much. Their behavior has been a lot better too. For those that missed it, the last week we were home they couldn't stand to be near each other. Smokey bit off part of Misty's ear, and they beat each other up pretty good. Ben got caught in the middle of one of their fights and we actually ended up in the ER on Easter. (No serious damage done and he's doing fine now). When we took them in to the vet to get their health certificates to come to Hawaii they were put on some medications for anxiety and aggression. They did help some while we were home, but we haven't needed them since we've been here. So that is good. It was just really weird as they have never acted like that before. And it was just towards each other, not the other dogs in the house. But anyway, they are doing good and seem to be enjoying it here too.

The weather has been kinda crazy since we've been here. Lots of thunderstorms and rain which is unusual (or so I'm told) for this time of year. And other than the fact that it causes the dogs to track the red mud through the house, I don't mind. The temperature has been pretty perfect. It's starting to get a bit warmer now, but nothing too unbearable as long as it's not muggy out. And when that happens I just stay inside with the a/c on. The rain makes for some awesome rainbows though.

Kaylin and I are doing well. She's getting bigger, and moves A LOT! I had another appointment Monday and everything is going fine. According to the scale at the office I've put on 4 lbs since my last appointment, but my scale here at home says I've only put on 2 maybe 3. I'll lean towards my scale at home. :) I had to do the glucose test a few weeks ago. My one hour test was slightly elevated, so I had to do the 3 hour test. I never heard back from the dr office saying there was a problem, and the midwife I saw the other day didn't even notice I'd had it done already, so I'm assuming everything was fine with it. She did say I'll have to do the 3 hour test again in 6 weeks or so to check for a late onset of gestational diabetes since I did it earlier than they usually do it. But that's what happens when you have a family history of diabetes and insulin resistance like I have. So overall things are good. I tire easily and have a hard time getting comfortable (especially at night), but it's all worth it, right?! And it's only a few more months...

Ben is doing about the same. Like I said in the beginning he's had lots of appointments. Unfortunately we haven't found anything that really helps with the pain. We talked to general surgery and the surgeon doesn't want to do surgery again. He doesn't think it will help, and would more than likely just make the problem worse. That's pretty much what we expected to hear from him. He did say he would give us the profile we need to start the med board though, just not at the first appointment. We go back Friday and will hopefully get it then. As soon as we get that they can start the med board. So hopefully we will have this whole process started by the end of the month. And as long as everything goes smoothly, we are looking at being out of the Army early next year (Jan/Feb time frame). Granted it's the military and things have a tendency to change in the blink of an eye. It's just one of those things we have to do step by step. In the meantime, we are trying different things with the pain clinic to see if we can find something that helps. The doctor ordered a few more tests and we're going to try some medical massage therapy. We'll see if that helps figure anything out. But that's where we are right now. Still doesn't feel like we've made much progress or really gotten any help period, but we have only been here a month. Hopefully we get something figured out soon. Even if it's just getting the med board started. I'll keep you updated though. :)